Expert view: the ACI blog

Tomorrow, June 12, marks the start of the World Cup with an estimated 600,000 tourists expected to descend on Brazil. With crime rates in the country on the rise, and a predictable sizable increase in financial transaction volumes during the event, fraudsters have no doubt made plans to target consumers spending money on their cards.

Well it must be nearly spring? The days are starting to get longer. The daffodils are starting to flower and the latest round of industry fraud stats from the Financial Fraud Action UK and other industry trade associations are out!!!

Pause for thought…….quiz time. Can you remember who topped the UK charts on the 14th February 2006? Now, can you also remember what was the main business driver behind the UK’s move to the EMV standard of “chip and pin,” which also coincidentally was the same official launch date (14th February 2006)?

For those for you that have been tracking, the NFA’s last estimate was £38.4bn, but the rise is really buried in the detail and largely attributed to the NFA casting their net on UK PLC a little wider and completing more granular analysis.

ACI’s 2010 Global Card Fraud Survey has been making a splash in the media over the last few weeks. According to our research, approaching a third (29 per cent) of consumers across eight major economies have been victims of card fraud in the past five years. This is up from less than a fifth (18 per cent) in summer 2009.

It is worthwhile remembering that there is actually more than one victim involved in Direct Debit fraud. The Paying Bank executes the payment against a fraudulent direct debit mandate, and the Collecting Bank receives the fraudulent payment, whose customer provides goods and services – for simplicity let's assume they are in fact legitimate in the first place.

First party fraud continues to be a challenge facing institutions and is, arguably, a necessary evil of doing business for institutions today. However, this also can prove problematic when also trying to balance regulatory and consumer pressure to treat customers fairly. Here the advantage tips in favour of the fraudster: how do institutions manage and treat a customer that they suspect of showing symptoms of first party fraud - fairly. Just look at some of the consumer web forums describing tales of woe where customers or credit applicants have negative registrations against their credit history – purportedly for account misuse or supplying false or misleading information. However, let’s not lose sight of the fact that dishonestly making a false representation is now recognised as a criminal offence under the Fraud Act 2006.

In today’s financial climate in which banks’ credibility has already taken a hit, any further reputational damage needs to be avoided at all costs. While financial institutions have come a long way in ensuring measures are in place to tackle money laundering, the class action taken against NatWest in the US by victims of a terrorist attack in Israel highlights how even conducting the correct due diligence can sometimes not be enough - leaving a bank’s name tarnished.

Investor information

Copyright ACI Worldwide, Inc. 2015.ACI, ACI Payment Systems, the ACI logo, ACI Universal Payments, UP, the UP logo and all ACI product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of ACI Worldwide, Inc., or one of its subsidiaries, in the United States, other countries or both. Other parties’ trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.